Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Jamie Dornan

Episode Date: January 30, 2022

Jamie Dornan was born in a place called Holywood, a small town in Northern Ireland just outside of Belfast. After bumping along for years as an actor in the other Hollywood, Dornan shot to international fame with his starring role in the billion-dollar Fifty Shades of Grey movies. In this week’s Sunday Sitdown, Willie Geist gets together with the star at an Irish pub to talk about his latest performance in the acclaimed film Belfast, a role that hits much closer to home.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Very excited to bring you our conversation today with Jamie Dornan. Now, for many of you, the name might call to mind 50 Shades of Gray, where he played the lead character, Christian Gray, a billionaire, with a thing for S&M. But nowadays, he's known for his lead role in the film Belfast, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. and most people are saying maybe nominated for an Oscar as well.

He's a fascinating guy. If you haven't seen Belfast, you ought to check it out. Actually, written and directed by the great Kenneth Branagh, an actor many of you know and love, about his own childhood in Belfast. Well, he was looking for somebody to effectively play his father in a movie set in 1969, and he went to Jamie Dornan.

Jamie Dornan, a native of Belfast. So the thing comes full circle, a bit of a homecoming for, Jamie Dornan, who grew up during the Troubles. Of course, the conflict of some 30 years between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Jamie Dornan grew up in the 80s. He's 39, about to be 40, 80s and 90s. The Good Friday Agreement brought an end in 1998 to the Troubles, but he lived through much of it. Just a really great guy. We met in New York City at an Irish pub called The Dead Rabbit, started by two guys from Belfast.

We thought it was the perfect place to sit down and talk through his life and his career. His father, his beloved father, Jim, died just under a year ago in March of 2021 of COVID-related complications. Boy, when you listen to Jamie talk about his dad, there is a reverence and a love for the man who was an OB-GYN, a doctor in Belfast and died last year. Jamie's mother died many. years ago when Jamie was 16 years old of cancer. Jamie lives in the English countryside with his wife and three children. And I feel like maybe many of you will feel the way I feel, which I know Jamie Dornan, of course, because of 50 shades of gray. But there's so much more to the guy. He's so interesting, so smart, so fun to talk to. And clearly, if you've seen Belfast, just a fantastic actor.

So I will step aside and turn things over to Jamie Dornan right now on the Sunday, Sit Down Podcast. Thanks for doing this, man. Thanks for having me. So we're in an Irish pub or the best possible recreation of one here in New York City. Yeah. And it was funny watching you look around the room to sort of identify some bits from home in here. Yeah.

Actually, from my home that have been stolen out of my actual home I grew up in. Like, that's mine. Did any of these bottles or anything look familiar to you? Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of good Irish whiskey up there. It's well represented. Powers, very famous bush mills up from the north from some good stuff. Talamore G.

I want to lay the groundwork, though, for your upcoming Irish whiskey. It feels like there's a vacuum, a void to be filled, and I think you're the man for it. Yeah, I think we should talk further. You're looking a percentage. Yeah, that's why I'm here, actually. That's why I've trapped you in this room. Yeah, I can feel it. I'm looking for a cut.

Yeah. I only got into drinking whiskey, much later in life. Someone told me once that men, of which I am one, our taste buds die much faster than women. So as a result, men seek out stronger tastes as they get older. So you get men, excuse me, as they get older, getting more into having pudding or dessert or whiskeys and cigars and all these stronger flavors. Because they feel like they need that to satisfy their Dying Pallet. Interesting.

Now that you say that, it's sort of an old man thing to have a scotch and a cigar. There we go. Well, we're getting there. You're coming up on a big birthday here. Yeah, that's true. We're getting over that hill together, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can't wait. So let's talk about this incredible film of Belfast, which is so special to you for so many different reasons, not just because of what a special movie it is and how well it's been received, but because it speaks to your life experience. Yeah. So when you heard that Kenneth Branagh was making this movie,

what did you think before you were even involved in it? It's funny because I always felt like that Kenneth Branham must have a story to tell from Belfast. You know, growing up there, I was acutely aware that Ken Brana was from Belfast. I think loads of people in the world didn't know that he had any Irish connection. But if you're from Belfast, you really know and are very proud that someone like that has come from there and done so well.

So I always sort of felt like, Ken, Brian, I must have something to say about this place because, you know, it must have shaped him in some way. And then it was a matter of, you know, it took him 50 years to write the script or to get to a place where it wasn't like you're sitting there from nine years old. Sturting a writer's block. Finally, okay.

But, you know, it took him a while. And a lot of it was down to lockdown and been given that space, naturally because of what the world was going through to actually put it all down. And it was a matter of, for me, you know, right place, like right time, like being the right age at the right stage of my career and being from the right place that it all made sense, thankfully, you know, so when I got that text from my, my agents and Kenneth Branagh wants you to do, you know, wants you to do his movie.

it's called Belfast and we'd love you to read it pretty quick and he'd love to talk to you pretty quickly. You know, you don't get texts like that very often. I find they always come on weekends. If my agents texting me on the weekend, I know it's something exciting. I'm not sure even this did come in the weekend,

but I tell you, it felt like that was a very strange time because it was during the first lockdown in the UK and Ireland. and the world, really, but I didn't know what I was doing. Work-wise, nobody did. There's nothing shooting. There's nothing even talking about shooting at that time. So it was really pleasant just to even be in the realms of potentiality to be working, let alone working on this really truly brilliant thing.

So Belfast tells his story from 1960. 49 forward. It's, you know, Buddy is effectively him. Sure. A fictionalized version of him. Your own experience in Northern Ireland came a little bit later than that. So what were those early conversations with Ken like about, because you grew, the troubles were different in the 1980s and 90s for you than certainly they were in the late 60s and

70s for him? Sure. Yeah, they were. And, you know, he saw it all from its inception from the very beginning of it, from normal everyday life being the same and being pleasant, joyous, even in the part of the city that he was in, to his world turning upside down overnight. You know, I have always, you know, admitted that I had much more of a middle-class background

than Ken did. But Belfast is a very small place. and even if you are having the most privileged version of growing up somewhere, you're still growing up in this small place where this awful stuff's happening. And so you can't help but be affected by it. I was born in 1982, so 13 years into a 30-year conflict. And so our timings were different and our scenarios were different. but we still feel that, you know, we're very connected as Belfast men and the people from that place who understand, you know, what it is to be from that place and the burden often from being from that place.

You cannot be from that part of the world and not be negatively affected. by, you know, what went on there and constantly scratching your head about why it went on for so long. And constantly trying to explain to people about it and help them understand. I've traveled the world for 20 years

since I left Belfast, telling people I'm from Belfast. You wouldn't believe some of their actions you get when you say you're from that place, you know? What do they say? Those people are just, you know... amazed that you got out alive. People are like that. You know, it's probably the same as if you say you're from Beirut or Kabul or any place

where people see in the news devastation. Right. And now when I look back on it, you know, and again, from very middle class, very, you know, affluent part of that country. But you still, it still has an effect on people when you, when you hear that place. because of all the news. Now when I look back in it and I see news footage,

I've been writing something myself set in Belfast in the 90s that we'll hopefully get to make soon. So I've been doing a lot of research of beyond what I already know and what I already live through. All the news footage from 70s, 80s, 90s that has beamed across the world of Belfast. It's horrific. It's a war.

It comes across as that. You see riding in the streets. You see young kids throwing petrol bombs at the police. You see, you know, aftermath of devastation after bombs. You see tit-for-tat killings are based purely on religion, people being shot, waiting for buses. Like, that's all that people are getting across the world. So no wonder people think it's this constant, you know, war zone filled with division and hatred. That's all they're being shown.

And it's not even, it's not even, not blame any ignorance. It's just all you're given. I think we're all guilty for, you know, casting ideas and places that we don't know a great deal about. So as a result, yeah, when you say you're from Belvenson people, they're like, Jesus. I'm like, you know what? It was actually the most lovely childhood.

And people who lived in way more working class areas than me had a lovely childhood too. But this was going on as a sort of constant backdrop. but the heart and the warmth of people in that city is like nowhere else in the world. I'm obviously biased. But I think all of Ireland are the warmest, friendliest, funniest, most resilient people, truly. And I think they've had to be resilient and they've had to use humour to get through darker periods. One of the things I thought about watching the film was we're in August of 1969.

And my God, these people have no idea. this is going on for 30 years until a good Friday agreement in 98. And because it's so white hot and it's so intense and how could this go on for this long? But 30 years of it. So you can say, okay, I grew up middle class, but it hung over everything, didn't it? Yeah, absolutely. It's funny. I'm thinking because obviously, Paul, my character in Belfast, they make that decision to flee, I guess,

to get out of the city and go to England. But they had a route out in that, you know, Pa was already, and Ken's father was already doing work in England. So they had a reason to go and a very sound reason. It was like, it's not like having to, you know, like so many people have to immigrate now. And because of war and awful stuff happening on the doorstep. And, you know, they risk their lives to get over to places.

And they arrive and they're treated like absolute. scum, sadly, all over the world. With their situation then in 1969, they already knew that they had safety. He had employment. They were going to get a house and with a garden and they're going to be looked after. In fact, they're going to get more money for his job and everything. So they had that safety net, I guess, and a lot of people didn't. But most of those people, yeah, they didn't know what was going to go on for 30 years. You know, they thought it might have gone on for a few months, a year maybe. There is a whole generation now,

born post, 1998, Good Friday Agreement. By the way, it's not perfect there, like now that, in fact, more peace walls have been erected since 1998 than were erected pre-1988. So there's more division in working class areas of West and North Belfast than there were when we were at war with each other. It's insane. some of that is a commercial thing

and Americans coming over or whoever coming over and them doing tours around the sort of hotspot areas and making more of it in the murals. So there's a whole generation now in their

early 20s who have had who have much less of an understanding but they're still growing up in a post-conflict society and they're still seeing the scars of that conflict on their parents' generation, but they have more of an acceptance and a tolerance, I think, than people

of the previous generations. There's still people beating the drum pretty hard who are very stuck in their ways and talking, having the same rhetoric that's been going on for 40, 50, 60 years. They need to be quiet and down, in my opinion. Now, politics needs to move on away from talking about it in the terms that got us absolutely nowhere. Brexit has been the worst thing ever for that part of the world. But then you have this whole generation of kids. You all have a vote who are much more unified. A lot of that's down to do with religion is a weakening.

Generally, I don't mean a certain type of religion. I mean generally in that part of the world. are less religious than they were in previous generations. So that whole thing of like, your God or my God, your church, my church, that's dwindling anyway. So they're not bound by that. And that's not swaying their decisions. You know, so much people who have been born post this next generation post 98, they just want to live normally in peace. But Brexit, of course, is on earth all of this tension because you have all the unionists and loyalists who feel so very British who are now realizing that people in England don't really care about them. I've never

really cared about them and are confused why they're upset about putting a border in the see when they're so British and they still feel so much a part of England than they do of Ireland. So many complications. We could talk about the politics and the struggles for identity for the rest of time, probably you and I. But it's still complicated, very complicated place. Yeah. And the other piece that strikes you is how it turned specifically in the case of this film, neighbor against neighbor.

Sure. We're two people who were friends for their entire lives and knew each other as neighbors and helping each other out and looking after their kids, all of a sudden, we're throwing fire bombs into each other's houses. How do you, for an American audience or someone from the outside, how do you explain that level of conflict where it did turn friends against each other? Yeah, I think, well, people were forced into taking sides, you know, and there's a lot of that in the film of trying to get my character to align himself with a particular movement.

And many people just didn't want to do that. That's why it's so important to see this film to see how normal hardworking people who didn't ask for it, weren't adding fuel to the fire, weren't becoming tribal and going well. This is how we think. That's how they think. I know they used to be friends, but not anymore because they've chosen that. Ken's family weren't like that. Most families weren't like that. They just wanted to live in peace and didn't want the disruption.

And I think that's really important to see, you know. but I think that that's true of many, many things, you know, it's like things that didn't matter when with your relationship, suddenly someone has told you that they matter, you know, it's been done in film before where we're seeing like friendships blossom and then someone finds out that they're homosexual and then, oh, my family is against that. And so that's, this changes everything when of course it shouldn't change anything. You know, it's the same thing. It's like suddenly realizing that, oh, my friend who's Protestant, can't be my friend anymore

because society and the vision and everything that's happening outside of our control is telling us that. That's a real sad fact at home. Still, still will he today in 2022 primary schools, so age 4 to 11, less than 7% of schools in Northern Ireland. are integrated. So from four years old, you're told that like you're separated from people who live in the same postcode as you

because your parents believe are from different churches. And we're in this tribe and they're in that tribe. How's it ever going to write itself if that's the crack? You know, it's so infuriating to me and so blinkered and so you know what I'm saying earlier.

but like politicians still been so stuck in their ways that they can't understand that integrating kids from four is totally necessary to advance. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Jamie Dornan right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Jamie Dornan. So let's talk specifically Jamie about pa, this character, because there is the influence of Ken Branagh's father. there's the influence of your father and there's the influence of your being a father to three kids so how did you approach this character

in terms of keeping it true to what Ken wanted but also to make it yours I was lucky there my understanding of who he was and how he would be and his sort of overall energy and being was exactly what Ken wanted.

Ken was also amazing with me, with Katrina, with all of us, about saying, like, essentially, you're playing the most important people in my life. You're playing my nuclear family. But I want you to bring your own instinct to, I want you to bring your own feelings, your own understandings of who these people are. because A, I think that he wanted to create a wee bit of separation. You know, he's very quick to say it's semi-autobiographical and it's based on life events and it's how I remember it rather than factual.

So to keep a bit of that and B, he wanted us to be comfortable with it, you know, and he was never at any point like sort of iron-fisting us into like, this is how my dad would have done it and he wouldn't have exploded the way you did on that take and he was much more strained. It was very much I'm here for you to ask me

any questions specifically you have about my parents but I want you to do what you feel that you want to do with the characters and he just trusted us I've never felt trust like this on a movie set in my life

and you know instinctually I have a pretty good understanding of a man from Belfast. I'm from Belfast. My dad was from Belfast. I come from a long line of men from Belfast. There's so much goodness in Pah and him trying to do the right thing for his family that I like to think I have myself. My dad definitely had.

From what I hear from my papa, my dad's dad who died before I was born, he had. And so trying to pay. put a lot of the essence of those Belfast men who I knew and loved into Pab. But then that seemed to always be aligned with what Ken had told me about his dad and what he, the vision he had for his own dad. You know, we're talking about people who, I think even if there was loads of footage of his parents document free, if they were like famous people and there's interviews and we could watch how they move.

and how they talk and stuff, which there obviously wasn't because there were two normal working class people from Belfast in the 60s. But even if there was, I think Ken would have been like, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to let you see that.

I did ask him, at one point, does there any footage? And he said, there's not really, but even if there was, you know, it wouldn't even have sound or anything. You know, so, you know, he's always trying to push us away from this, like, interpretation of his parents

and make it just our own thing, which is massive as an actor of that. you know, just to have that freedom and that confidence that, like, what I'm bringing to it naturally is what he wants. And it could have been the other way around. We're playing his parents. Like, it could have been insane pressure all the time to be very specifically like his parents were. But we never felt that.

I was going to say that could be a lot of pressure. You finish it taking. You can't look back. Did I get them right? No, that would be. I just couldn't work like that. And Ken, you know, it's also the dream of being directed by an actor and not just any actor, like an unbelievable actor.

He is so acutely aware of where your head is at at all times as an actor. He knows where all the fear is with every single scene. He knows that most actors think the same. And he knows moments where you could potentially find yourself cross. into your own head about what it is you're about to expose of yourself. And he would just handle you very sort of gently, gently into a place where you feel really ready and confident about what you're going to do. It's a real treat to be directed by, obviously such a big director, but also such a fantastic actor.

I was thinking as the credits rolled when I watched this, what pride you must have to have told the story of your city to the world in such a good way. I imagine you really wanted to get this right, but to have it so well received and people talking about Oscars and everything else, it must have felt good to see the finished product and say, okay, I think we got the story in my home city, right? Yeah, well, never more so than the 4th of November, 2021, which I will never forget, because we screened it on the first night of the Belfast Film Festival in Belfast. it only got released in Belfast, you know, in January, 2022.

So they had a bit of a wait, but there was sort of 1,400 lucky people who got to see it that night. Some very, you know, important people in my life, some of my best friends, my sisters, my auntie. That was an incredible thing to behold. I would have said earlier, but the importance of this. story and sort of showcasing to the world that we're actually all normal, nice, everyday, hardworking people. And we're not all aligned by religion, sectarianism. We're not all tribal.

Most of us are just trying to get along. We haven't seen that on film before. truly from that part of the world. We've seen brilliant films that come out of the north of Ireland. By Jim Sheridan, name of the father, Jan Demand's more recently of 71,

Steve McQueen, Hungary, you know, seen some great films, but they're all very politicised or, you know, leaning towards, you know, a paramilitary angle,

a very different lens to seeing it through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy and a normal family. It's vital. It's necessary, I think, and I feel that people at home, I know that they felt the same way

and I could feel it that night. There was a very strong, powerful, palpable sense of appreciation that we were telling that story that I think in many ways, people in Belfast understand on a very different level to anyone else. You know, if people are like, well, you know, factually, that's not exactly what happened.

and that's not what it's about. A, as Ken says, it's how he remembers it. He was nine years old when this happened, and he's writing 50 years later, he sees it, and a lot of it is very heightened, but a lot of it's very factual too. But the essence of this film and why it's so important is to tell it from just normal people.

And, you know, if you want to get a more factual understanding of the beginnings of a conflict, there's a million ways to be taught that lesson. Belfast isn't that, but it tells you the truth and the warmth of the people. And that is a message that is really necessary. And I feel that people from home really felt that. And I know now that it's been released there, I've been getting a lot of texts from people saying there's been like standing ovations at the end when the credit roll just in regular cinemas. Now, with the greatest respect, we're not Americans.

not we don't have the enthusiasm that Americans have we don't have the confidence that Americans have we don't clap when planes land we don't we don't laugh out loud in the cinema we don't we've been hot going to cinema in America's like if you're from where I'm from you can't believe it how much people are like whooping and hollering and clapping us and laughing so much we just sit there and then watch it and then go for your gaffton go that that was fun that was funny that it didn't laugh but it was funny that bit wasn't it when you know We're different, you know.

It's an interactive experience in America. Sure, yeah, big time. Talking to the screen. Big time, like the first time blew my mind. We don't clap when films end. We don't. You know, so, but apparently that's been going on in Belfast in the last few nights, the first few nights that the film came out.

It's brilliant to hear that. I just love it, and it just shows how necessary this story is for people from home. You mentioned your father, and I know you brought your father to this character, undoubtedly his experience and in his life. And I'm so sorry about the loss of your dad last year. And I know one of your great regrets is he didn't get to see Belfast. What do you think your dad would think if you were in a theater watching Belfast? Yeah, listen, I mean, my dad was a very proud, Belfast man and very proud of the place and the people,

and but also enraged by the people and the sort of stuck in their way as politics and you know, always, you know, wanting to move the conversation forward. But the importance of this movie would not have been lost in him. I take comfort in the fact he knew I did it. You know, we finished it. He didn't get to see it. But he will have been well aware of the necessary impact that it will have made. He would have been tickled pink by the response that's got

and for all the sort of accolades. I mean, my dad was proud of the stuff I've done. So, you know, like, there's been plenty of it. You know, I am very fortunate that for, I was going to say 20 years because that's when I left Belfast, but even before that, I've never achieved anything without being told how proud my dad is. of me. He's always done that. He was always

so proud of me. As I said before, some stuff that I wasn't proud of myself, even maybe, or you know, work that I'd done that I didn't think was great and the world was telling me it wasn't great, whatever, dad was always had my back. Some people go their whole lives without hearing those words

from their folks. So I consider myself very lucky that everything I got to achieve, he got to experience and was proud of. So, but yeah, Nothing would have made him more proud than this, but, you know, in a way I feel like I can feel his influence over this whole mad experience that Belfast has been since we first showed it, Telly Ride in September. That's our role as dads, isn't it, to be proud of the stuff. That's what we do.

Yeah, well, it's kind of, it's that thing of, like, you know, been handed some drawing by, you know, my two-year-old the other day handed me some. she was getting bits of paper and she wanted she kept asking me for glue. I was like, I don't love giving them glue because God knows what's going to happen. And we're in a thing in a rental house in L.A. that, you know, we can't really destroy. So I said, listen, I'll give you the glue. But daddy's going to just watch you while you do it. And then she was going, don't watch, don't watch. And I was going, so I was kind of like turning up back to her, kind of keeping an eye.

and she then made these two pictures, I guess, with like this purple glue. And the glue was actually what she was using to create the imagery. And she had to me these two things. And, you know, she'd worked hard on them. You know, and one was for mommy and one was her daddy and she gave them to me.

They're terrible, you know, but like, I am proud. I am like, she's really proud of them. You know, I'm like, Jesus, right, fair enough, you put the work in and I don't know what to do with them now really but I appreciate them and I'm proud of you. So it's that I guess.

Anything you know that someone's worked hard you know, I think particularly when you work hard and you do some stuff and you put everything into it and then it doesn't get received well or people say negative stuff about you. You know, I've said before I'm in the wrong game if I can't take criticism

but it's not just about me your family see that stuff, you know. People said some pretty horrific stuff about me before, and my capabilities as an actor, whatever it is. My family see that. My dad saw that. I don't like that. But for me, in a round-of-white way, I think it's a good thing

because it lights a bit of a fire under me, and I feel like I'm always trying to prove myself and people wrong. Belfast has been a big help towards. that I guess. No question. Yeah. I like what you say about your dad. He's a beacon of positivity. Yeah. And I think that what you just said is so central to what we try to do is dads. Don't be on your deathbed and say all the things. Say them as you go. You have to. And that's such an, his life is such an affirmation of what I think so many of us try to do. Say it in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, you know, we should all be like that, you know, if, if we can.

And not even away from just the pride thing, just love too. Like I was always told that I was loved, always, always. I feel like Dad even had a more of a responsibility. I lost my mother when I was 16. I know. And my mom wasn't, she was loving, but she was not in that same way. She wasn't very tactile.

And she wouldn't have told us she loved us that often, you know. And so I think like Dad, there's always sort of making up for that maybe a bit. like we always felt so loved from both sides but dad was just more vocal about it maybe and certainly more tactile with us and um i've definitely inherited that from dad rather than um from from mom and um it's it's important it's we need to feel loved it's literally all we have like so um i feel very blessed that i that i get to shore these three little girls with with love uh constantly and you know And it's not a chore. Like, they're very lovable little people. It can't be sometimes. It's work. Oh, listen.

Jesus. You were only 16, as you said, when your mom died. So she didn't see any of this. Obviously, she didn't even see the modeling or the beginning of your career. No. Do you ever stop and think about what she may be seeing or thinking somewhere far away? Yeah. My mum was a very beautiful, very glamorous person, loved to get dressed up, always looked immaculate.

You know, would have had a real eye on, I don't know, celebrity or whatever you want to call it, you know, would have been very enamored by people in that world, I guess. and she would never have believed it. There was no signs at that stage that I would do anything like this. I was so obsessed of sport, probably an only sport really at that age. I'd always done drama. I did drama at schools.

I mean, the only prize I ever won outside of sport was a drama prize when I was 10. You know, she got to witness that, I guess. So she did see the beginning of your career. I was in drag. Really? Playing a sort of pantomime. You don't have pantomimes here, do you?

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm playing this pantomime called Widow Twanky, who's like a pantomime character who's always a guy in drag. At 10?

At 10? Wow. Yeah, we had a cleaning lady called Nellie Morgan, who was my inspiration for part. I just mimicked her. And, yeah, scooped a big prize at 10 years old.

Actually, shared it. I won the joint drama prize. Does Nellie know she inspired your acting career? You know what? She didn't stay with us that much long. And then she's amazing women, Nellie Morgan. She used to walk. We lived six miles outside Belfast in a place got Hollywood where I grew up.

Nelly walked to him from work. And now and again, you'd say, can we give you lift? And she'd reluctantly, but often she'd turn it down or can we drop to the train station? No, and she'd walk. That was her thing. She'd walk up and down this busy road, six miles to get the work. And she lived in a very, very interesting part of Belfast called the Short Strand, which is a strong Republican community right in the middle of.

of East Belfast, which is very loyalist. So as a result, there was a hotspot area for violence. She was an unbelievable woman. She had sisters here in New York, and she used to save up and fly to New York every year. You were talking about a cleaning lady from a working class part of Belfast. She wouldn't have a lot of money,

and every time she came back from New York, she'd have got bought me Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures. It blew my mind, like the kindness. I love Nellie. She knows somewhere. She says I have raised that boy. Yeah, she died a few years ago. I was working with a driver in Belfast who's driving me when I was doing this joke of the fall.

And he knew Nellie and he informed me that she died a few years ago. But yeah, I think my mom would have, you know, she wouldn't have seen it coming. But she wouldn't be able to believe what's happened. Any part of it, even the first bit, even the first decade of modeling. You know, it didn't look like that was in my future at all. that you left Belfast when you were 19. About to be 20, I guess. Yep.

To do some modeling. Yeah, I went to university first. I went to a marketing degree. By the way, that's how we all start college. We don't know what we were going to do. Well, you know, it was a thing where I didn't want to go to university. I truly didn't. That doesn't mean I knew what I wanted to do.

But I knew it didn't want to go to university. At the time, I was playing a pretty good level of rugby, enough to be like, you know play a good club rugby where you get paid you know a hundred dollars a game or something and then I probably would have got a you know definitely got a job like it's a probably like an estate agent or something or realtor as you say here because you didn't really need any qualifications to do that at that plus right yeah I was like I could show people around houses

sure um but I knew um that's probably what I would have ended up doing, but I did have ambitions to just be, honestly, leave Belfast and just try something. I always had this thought in my head that if I went to London, something would happen for me and I didn't know what it was. So when I went away to uni in the northeast of England, after a year of marketing, I went to nine hours of university, five of them were in Freshers Week. So I then essentially spent like eight months going to four hours of university. I mean, you do the math. It's ridiculous. I never went. It was very non-committal.

played a lot of decent rugby, drank a lot, made some good friends, but I wasn't there to study. And I realized I was wasting time and my dad's money by being there. And I will forever thankful to my dad for when I did come back that summer and say, I want to drop out of the university and move to London and I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to work in a pub. I worked in a bar for six months. He said yes. And I really said yes quickly, too.

He was like, look, if it's what you want to do. If that's not what you want to do, I'm not going to keep forcing you down that path. Right. But I went to the uni, everyone was filling out their forms at the same time. A lot of my mates were doing sort of business-type degrees. I didn't have the grades to do medicine or law. So a business sort of degree seemed like the next thing. I think marketing, it's a bit business-y.

Yeah, I can kind of make that work. Yeah, not for me. So where does the modeling come in then? You get sort of plucked out of... Yeah, kind of. Relative obscurity. Well, I got plucked out of my family, basically, to my sister.

It was one of my sisters. My middle, I'm the youngest of two older sisters and Jessica, my middle sister. Listen, I had a real, I won't forget that summer for so many reasons. Summer 2002, I'd come back from uni, my dad. I was having a real fruitless summer. my friend Lee McCluskey and I drank a lot. We'd get up early. I mean, you and I are in a pub very early. But look at us. We're drinking water being very well-behaved.

But we would like drink sort of all day, kick a football or soccer ball around for a minute. And I remember one day, dad came home and from work. My dad wasn't professor, medicine, obstetrician. and I had spent the day you said what did you do today someone I was like um and I had de-strung a tennis racket that I had a broken string in

and I'd spent the day just on picking this thing and I said look and I was proud of it I was like look at this right check this out dad you're gonna be delighted I took all the strings off this racket remember it was broken I took it up

anyway dad I don't think my dad ever shouted at me in my entire life. He didn't shout at me, but he took me into this sort of front room that we never really used. Everyone has that room that never used unless the neighbours are around. And he sat me down. And he actually, he said I was, I remember then years later saying he told me that,

called me this and him saying he didn't think he used this language, but I remember he did. He called me a wester. He said I was, he couldn't handle me wasting. my life like that. So it was around that time, there was a lot of discussion on my family

of like, what are we going to do by Jamie? How do you solve a problem? Like Jamie here, he's dropped out of the union and he's spending his day taking strings at 10th records thinking it's a big achievement. I was probably depressed, looking back on it now.

You know, it was only a few years after Mom had died and I was probably a bit rudderless and confused about where I wanted to go. And it was then that my sister, Jessica, had seen something about like an open casting thing for this show. This was just a

very early days. Like a reality show. Yeah, kind of, I guess it was. But it was sort of before, not as we know it now where everything's reality world is a reality TV show. It was called model behavior and the idea was they plucked people from all over Ireland,

England, Scotland, Wales, whatever. And they all lived in an apartment together and went on castings and then the winner of the boys and the winner of girls would get like modeling contracts or anything. Anyway, I got picked, got through the Belfast round which wasn't that tough. I'll do respect. Yeah, I'll do respect. Yeah, great looking people. But it was not like I was not you don't grow up maybe do now and maybe that's a good thing. Not saying because of what I achieved but just we're much more open understanding

society now. We didn't grow up in the environment I grew up in wanting to be a male model. just wasn't the crack at all. So I was very reluctant, very embarrassed to go, didn't really tell, and he would force one of my mates to go with me. He nearly didn't show up, and if Jesus, I had to drag him out of bed. And if he hadn't, I wouldn't be sat here now,

truly, I would have been an estate agent in Belfast. But he came, and I went, and I was really doing it just to be able to go, guys, I went to that thing, are you happy now? Anyway, that thing then became a thing where I was like, I could get paid money for that, you know? Right.

Move to London, they, you know, on a bit of a whim. I got kicked out of the show after a day. I didn't even make it anywhere near the apartment. Like I didn't have what it took, they told me. But one of the judges was a booking agent at Select Model Management in London, who you got the contract with. And I said to her, listen, do you think if I moved to London, I could actually do this? And she was like, you know, I can't really say that.

I don't know, but like, if you ever come to London, give us a call. I took that to mean I'm moving to London because they want me to give me loads of money to model. So about a month later, I moved to London. I knew another Irish guy who was working in a pub who was leaving. So I knew there's a vacancy. Fulfed out my CV a bit with pub work. Got straight into this bar job. I worked there full time.

I went to the modeling agency and went, I'm here and they're like, what are you doing here? and I was like, remember you said? And they were like, no, we, oh my God, you've actually moved on. I was like, yeah, that's what you said. Anyway, I then because of contractually, because of that being part of the show, even though I wasn't featured, I wasn't allowed to do your contract with them or work for them for like six months or five months or something, until the show had aired.

So then I was sort of in limbo. That's why I just worked in a pub until I could make the happen. And literally the day that they told me, I was allowed to go, I was there and knocking the door, and I was like, I'm here. And they're like, wow. As I say this, there's so much of that I don't recognize myself. Like the sort of audacity of it and the ambition of it that I didn't think I possessed at 20. But clearly I did.

And when I was there, they were like, well, look, we can't guarantee anything. And then I just heard someone go, who's that? Turn around to him called Tandy Anderson, who owned the agency. Probably only came in one or two days a week. And she happened to be there. And I said, oh, I'm Jamie. and Bobola and she said, I like your face. And I went, cool.

And then that was it. And then they took me on and then things sort of happened quite quick. But it was all fate and luck and timing and madness. Like so many things. Yeah. So you do that well. You do it successfully, big campaigns, Abercrombie and Fitch, all these other, these big. And then at some point you decide, okay, this has been good for me.

I made some money and I've done really well. But what's the next thing? And then that's when you pursue acting. Yeah. Yeah. I got an agent at 22. I did, so not long into that. I did my first audition was Murray and Tonez,

which I got in Port Sophia Copp. That was my very first thing. But I was still very half-baked about what I wanted to do. I was sort of in a band, I was kind of a bit like, I was in my young early 20s. I didn't have a clue who I was, really. But I knew that I never got a real satisfaction out of modeling, let's say that.

I enjoyed it, enjoyed traveling around, enjoyed spending a lot of time in New York. But I didn't. I remember, I remember as someone, one of the bookers of my agency saying to me when I was about 24, 25 maybe, it's like, you've got the sort of face that means, you know, because it was so like, you know,

you could get models that would come in and they had the right look for that moment. They're like stick thin, like androgynous look or whatever. it's like that's really in, or you had more of a timeless, like, catalog-y, longevity kind of face. And I remember being told that, like, you've got a face that will, you know, the structure of your actual bones and stuff that means you'll be able to do this for a very long time. And they were telling me that as a positive thing. Right.

And I was just going, oh my God, no, I don't want to be doing this for a long time. The idea, and with the greatest of respect, and I, if you can make money modeling in your 60s, whatever, play, I didn't want to do that. The idea of that made me feel sick in my stomach. I was like, I can't believe I would have to be doing this. Because you had no control. I hated the lack of control you had over it. I hated the sort of put your arm down and put it up again.

I found it really like, do I get to own any of this, any of me? No. No is the answer. So when them telling me that is just like, this could be fruitful, you could be making money for this for three more decades. I was like, God, get me out of here. Like, I can't do that. So, yeah, and then I started to then realize that to be an actor,

you had to actually work much harder than I was at that time. I was just thought it was cool. And now and again, I have an audition. I'd be like, oh, okay, I'll go and I won't put any work in. And then I put a lot of work in for a while and didn't get anywhere either. And I thought, Jesus, this is never going to happen. And I guess eventually it did. Yeah, you said you got the first thing you booked with Marie Antoinette,

but then a long dry spell after that. and then something comes along this book that's been written, 50 Shades of Grey. What was your first thought when they pitched you the idea? I thought, can you imagine the scrutiny of being involved in that project? Did you really right away? Yeah, I did. And then when I went up for it, a bit of a process got down to last two or three people, I imagine. didn't get it.

They cast someone else, Charlie Hunnam. And I thought relief. I truly felt relief. I was like, oh, that guy's in for a nightmare. Because the book was so huge and you're going to disappoint a bunch of people and you're not the right guy. All the things that people project on to it. All that stuff that happened. You know, it happened with him.

You know, you knew that that was going to come along. I was part of saying yes to it was all this instant negativity and scrutiny. and questioning. And then you knew that no matter what brilliant creative people they put behind it, you knew that they were going to get critically panned because we were staying so close to the books which got critically panned. What are you going to do? Like that's, that was a guarantee.

It's very strange thing. Here's this great opportunity, but everyone's going to hate it, except the fans. Because guess what, everyone hated the books except the fans. Now the fans really loved the books and we made the films for the fans and they loved the films and they went to see them in their droves and it made $1.4 billion. So it was a massive success in many ways but we all know how critically pandaga. So it's a very, it was a very strange situation. And then when Charlie dropped out, I was like, oh my God. And then I came around to me again and a couple of other lads who we all know who, you know, I'm like, God, they could be taking the flag for this.

And no one's saying anything bad about them, even though someone thought I was better than them because I'm the one in the hot seat here. So it's very strange sort of sequence of events and a lot of, it wasn't an instant yes. I was like, Jesus. But I got cast five weeks before we started filming. My wife was 34 weeks pregnant with our first child. Very strange time. I had to make a very quick decision of. Could I get my family to Vancouver safely to start making these movies with such on shit's short notice?

You know, I have, you know, zero regret with being involved in them and making them, you know, and it'd be crazy to have regret because it's afforded me the opportunity to do so many other great projects off the back of it. If you're in the movies that make that much money, you get tremendous opportunity. you know it put me in a position financially that I never thought I'd ever be in and you know there's lots of good things and and again we satisfied the fans in a massive way do you have to deal with all the other negative part of it yeah sure but as I said to you earlier I'm in the wrong game of can't take criticism you know it's it's you know I think John Oliver had a whole thing of like he's not my Christian grey or whatever about me

I've never met John Oliver. I've actually always thought he's really interesting commentator. Makes me think he's a bit of a prick. You know, saying something like that about someone you don't know, starting a whole campaign about someone you don't know, I, in my opinion, is an unfair thing to do. But, you know, dealing with stuff like that, even if you're not aware of it, you're sort of made aware of it through osmosis.

And it becomes a pylon. It becomes cool to the pylon. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And we've seen so many examples of that from, not compared. hiring myself to, you know, other, you know, but like, you've seen people here, not the mind of some, you know, mine was just like, you know, that was before the films came out. He started that thing. But we've seen that happen where talk show hosts have said stuff and then

there's been some sort of demise for those people and then they have to sort of retract, you know, that's not my story, but like I just, I think people have to be a bit careful when they say stuff like that. It's hard to block that out. So you can say I'm just kind of focus and look forward. But as you say, the opportunity afforded you, how popular it was with the people who it mattered to, that changed your life, how did you deal with the fame side of it? Because up to then, people knew you from the fall, you had your audience, but this is something else entirely. Now you're being chased down the street. Everyone wants to know more about your wife and all those things. How did you handle that? I hid. I truly hid. When the first movie came

out, we literally went away and stayed in a friend's house in the middle of nowhere. And I switched my phone off for two weeks. And then at that exact moment, so six years now, yeah, a film came out seven years ago. But for the last six years, we've lived out in the countryside, nowhere near anything major going on. that you know that's been part of it also this this whole madness of my career paralleled with becoming a father for the first time we have had three kids in in that time also so we wanted to be somewhere where the kids were away from that let alone my wife and I being subjected to that and I think it was the

right thing to do to just not be that much in people's eye line really yeah and I'm glad glad we did that. And actually it's been great now. The kids are getting to nays where they don't need this for absolutely everything. But it was the right move for us at that time. And now your big social event is the dad's soccer league where you leave the league and pulled hamstrings, I'm told. There's a lot of injuries now. It's embarrassing. You know, but yeah, we had this big grudge match against the school staff there, which we won a few weeks ago, which is pleasing. But I got an injury. pretty early on and had to pretend I was fine and play through it. But yeah. You got to stretch those hammies before the games that are.

You really do. Stick around for more of my conversation with Jamie Dornan right after a quick break. Welcome back. Now the rest of my conversation with Jamie Dornan. I've kept you too long before we let you go out and ask you about the tourist. Yeah. Which is a big hit in the UK. Now coming to HBO Max.

Yep. Such a cool series. Just for people who are thinking about watching it. What's the thumbnail sketch of the story? Yeah, I have to say for me personally, having Belfast and the tourists come out around the same time to get the love that they're both getting when there's such different projects,

I play such different characters. It's been a nice time for me, and it's been enjoyable, and I've loved it, and the love it's gotten in the UK, and Ireland has been very real. So, yeah, it's sort of, the setup is a guy, me, he's just known as The Man. is driving through the Australian Outback,

seemingly in quite a happy place in his head. He's singing along to a song. Then this big truck comes very close behind him. It's very inspired by Stephen Spielberg's duo. Gets into this big race with this sort of race slash chase with this truck. It becomes very dramatic. Anyway, the truck ends slamming him off the road. Guy wakes up in hospital.

No memory. of who he is or why he's in Australia or why anybody's trying to kill him who then spend the next six hours finding out exactly those answers and it is really warped why he's there and tonally it shifts around so much and just when you think you know that you have a handle on what's going to happen you're like sidebarred and you're totally wrong it's a very entertaining show and yeah it's an exciting six hours of television

That first opening scene, the truck chase, is that real? I mean, if you make it through, let's say, the first 30 minutes, truckers tried to kill them and someone with a bomb and a diner already, just to give you a sense of how intense this is. Does the praise for both Belfast and the tourist feel like vindication in any way? You talk about having a fire lit under you because some of the negative criticism that you received around the 50 Shades movies, and now for you to say, look at these.

Yeah, I'm reluctant to call it vindication, but, you know, my whole life ethos is back yourself. You know, I've always backed myself with anything. If you gave me a bit of paper now and there's a waste paper bin and you challenged me to throw it in 10 out 10 times, I would love that challenge. And I back myself to do it 10 times. Just whatever that is, I've always had a bit of confidence, whatever. self-belief, you really need it to do. You can't be here. You can't be trying to do this for a living if you don't have it. Even if you're all like, everyone believes that they have something to offer. I always have. So it's more just that. It's just building on that, I guess. And, you know,

I've always believed and lived by Peter O'Toole's words of great words, make great actors. I think it's as simple as that. I've always backed myself that if I'm given a good script and a good director, I'm going to produce good work. It's as simple as that. I'm lucky of last couple of things I've done have been fulfilled in the script and director part. So they've been received well. It's a good thing.

But I just want to build on that just because it's my own journey, my own career. And I feel like I have so much more to offer. So, you know, in many ways, I feel like I'm just getting started. Will there be people from the entirety of my career? career that only see me as like one character. Yeah, sure. That's on them. Well, I'm happy for you

to be having this moment because you're getting all the love you deserve and it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for your time. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you. It's great. Cheers, man. My big thanks to Jamie for a great conversation and to the good people at the Dead Rabbit in New York City, one of the best bars in the world. They win awards all the time. It's an amazing spot if you ever in New York City. Check it out. You can watch Jamie's new film, Belfast in theaters now. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode.

And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.